A Senate committee has been investigating the TikTok social network for several days, focusing on sensitive points such as its use of data and its influence strategy.
Without going so far as to question the future of TikTok in France as the United States and to a lesser extent Canada do, the senator and president of the group Les Indépendants – République et Territoires, Claude Malhuret carries a resolution that led to the creation of a commission of inquiry into the use of TikTok. She is destined to shed light on the truth “Charges collected by the Chinese social network, which is not only in the crosshairs of the Senate alone.
Personal data, addiction, GDPR… the platform is the subject of multiple accusations
Among the accusations launched against TikTok in recent months, we can mention the supposed differentiated operation according to geographical areas, which would tend to reinforce the addictive nature of the platform and to push the maximum duration of use ever further. This would also be different depending on whether the user is in China, where TikTok would share more educational content, or in the rest of the world.
The report to the GDPR (the European regulation on the protection of personal data) is also pointed out, TikTok being suspected of not sufficiently respecting the confidentiality of its foreign users, perhaps going so far as to communicate their data to third parties, data viewed by ByteDance employees around the world.
” Current events in the United States, Canada and Europe reinforce our initiative in the Senate “, specifies Senator Malhuret, who completes: “ we are not able to affirm that TikTok is not a potential instrument of disinformation or manipulation for the benefit of undemocratic regimes, nor that its use is safe with regard to the necessary data protection “.
For Mickaël Vallet, socialist, ecologist and republican senator appointed chairman of the commission of inquiry, ” the impressive success of TikTok, especially with young people, makes it even more necessary to clear up certain gray areas “.
TikTok invited to reassure
The Senate’s fact-finding mission began its work on March 13, with the hearing of Marc Faddoul, researcher in artificial intelligence. The specialist, who does not see a fundamental difference between a TikTok and a Facebook or Twitter, calls all the same to be wary of the fact that the company must ” responding to an authoritarian government “.
At the same time, TikTok is busy trying to convince the French authorities of its good faith, in particular after having unveiled its Clover project, a European enclave for storing its users’ data. The teams of the video sharing platform, who have started a real European tour of seduction, have as such met the president of Arcom, Roch-Olivier Maistre, to detail this famous project, still on March 13.
A little earlier, it was the Minister Delegate for Digital, Jean-Noël Barrot, who faced TikTok. The member of the government was able to discuss with Erich Andersen, general counsel of ByteDance, on the various questions in particular raised by the senators, while TikTok already has around 15 million users in France.
If there is no question of banning TikTok nationwide, at least not at this stage, several ministries have already banned the mobile application from its officials. The pressure is strong: it is now up to the ByteDance group to convince all parties.
Source : Senate
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